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EULOGY 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

•Jt- 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

CITIZENS OF BANGOR, 

OX THE DAY OF THE 

NATIONAL FAST, 

JUNE 1st, 1SG5. 

By CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT. 



BANGOR: 

PRINTED BY SAMUEL S. SMITH 
1865. 



403 - ' '3j 




) 



EULOGY 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

DELIVERED BEFOUE THE 

CITIZENS OF BANGOR, 

ON THE DAY OP THE 

NATIONAL EAST, 

.TTJjNTH: lwt, 1SGJ3. 

By CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT. 



B A'-N GOR: 

PRINTED BY SAMUEL S. SMITH 

1 8 (5 5*. 



Bangor, June 1, 1865. 
r.i.v. am> Dbab Sib : 

Will vou do us the favor to furnish a copy for publication, of the 
Eulogy mi the life ami character of Abraham Lincoln, pronounced by 

you, tlii- day, before our citizens. 

Respectfully Yours, 



Samuel II. Dale, } 

Wm. U. Mills, > Committee. 

John L. Crosby, ) 



Rev. C. C. Evebett. 



Third Street, June 2d, 1865. 
Gentlemen :— I have the pleasure to hand you a copy of the Eulogy 
lelivered the day of our National Fast, as asked for in your communica- 
tion of the l>t inst. 

Respectfully Yours, 

C. C Everett. 

Samuel II. Dale, and others, Committee. 



EULOGY. 



" Our popular Government has often been called an 
experiment. Two points in it our people have already 
settled : the successful establishing and the successful 
administering of it. One still remains — its successful 
maintenance againt a formidable internal attempt to 
overthrow it." Such was the language of President 
Lincoln in his first message to Congress. The third 
and last experiment, of which he spoke, has been 
fairly and successfully tried. It has been demonstated 
to the world, to use again his prophetic words — " that 
those who can fairly carry an election can also sup- 
press a rebellion ; that ballots are the rightful and 
peaceful successors of bullets ; and that when ballots 
have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be 
no successful appeal back to bullets ; that there can 
be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves 
at succeeding elections." For the triumphant success 
of this grand experiment the nation is indebted to no 
one so much as to Abraham Lincoln. I do not forget 
his wise counselors. I do not forget the Generals, who 
in this prolonged struggle have gained glory for them- 
selves and for their country. J do not forget the sol- 
diers, whose steadfast courage took now the form of 
patience in suffering, now of firmness in resistance, 



and now of irresistible and overwhelming impetuosity 
in attack ; of whom Lincoln, at the opening of the war, 
could say with an honest pride, that " no common sol- 
dier or common sailor is known to have deserted his 
flag," and who maintained unbroken fidelity to the 
end. I do not forget those who have given so freely 
of their money, or those who have given treasures 
infinitely dearer, the very pride and joy of their lives, 
to their country. I do not forget those who have 
toiled with loving patience to supply the needs of the 
sick and the suffering. I do not forget that the entire 
nation gave itself and all its energies, with a hearti- 
ness almost without precedent, to the great work. But 
yet to Abraham Lincoln, more than to any other power 
under God, I believe it is indebted for its success. It 
was his integrity and his wisdom, his firmness and his 
tact, that, more than any other single influence, united 
the North, and crushed the South. It is to do honor 
to his memory that we come together to-day. Alas, 
that we can pay honor to his memory alone ! Alas, 
that he is not with us to share the brightest honors of 
the nation's triumph ! This triumph should not be, 
and least of all in his heart would it have been, a par- 
tisan exultation over the defeat of Southern armies, 
however much we might have rejoiced together, that 
the sacriligious hands lifted against our country have 
been smitten down. These armies were also American. 
Even the bloody Sulla and Marius, even Crcsar and 
Augustus, would not celebrate a triumph at the end 
of a civil war, for thereby the Republic had not been 
advanced. But though ours has been a civil war, we 
have cause for a triumph, grander than any that ever 



glorified the streets of Home. The nation is not only 
one as it was before, it is free as it never was before. 
The Republic has been advanced. It has reached the 
grand height of universal liberty. Well may it tri- 
umph though its leader has fallen in the strife. Well 
may it make him, though unseen, a sharer in the vic- 
tory. As at every pause in the sad journey, in which 
the slain President was borne back to his home in Illi- 
nois, the mourning crowd brought flowers wrought into 
sweet garlands and sacred crosses, to lay upon his bier, 
* so may we bring our fairest offerings of love and rev- 
erence, of praise, and of sorrow which is greater praise, 
trusting that all may not fail to reach him, even where 
he is. For if any love and sorrow have power to force 
their way into the unseen world, pressing on after the 
departed, shall not the loving sorrow of a bereaved 
nation have such might. 

A change has passed over us, indeed, since we stood 
in the sudden bewilderment of grief, and strove to utter 
his greatness and our loss. Then our best words were 
little more than articulate sobs. In the crowded events 
of these weeks, that moment seems now remote. We 
are again calm, cheerful and hopeful. In these last 
years we have, indeed, almost lost the sense of time. 
Hope and fear, exultatioD, and despondency which was 
half despair, have so chased one another through our 
hearts, that sometimes the sense of our own identity 
has seemed confused. Are we the generation that 
wept over that first terrible defeat ? Are we the gen- 
eration that was wild with a delirious joy, which knew 
no check or abatement, when Richmond fell ? And 
since the death of Lincoln, surrender has so rapidly 



6 

followed surrender, retribution has so terribly followed 
in the steps of crime, the very last vestige of the rebel- 
lion lias been so thoroughly uprooted, that we might 
almost think that years had passed instead of weeks. 
It is almost as if we stood in the place of our own 
posterity. We can look back calmly and impartially. 
We can judge of acts and of actors. We can speak 
of Lincoln with the soberness of historic truth. We 
can recount, as we could not before, the story of his 
life. We can survey and estimate, as we could not 
then, his character and his work. We can even smile 
at the good-humored play of his ready wit But as 
we thus strive to take in with impartial estimate the 
full measure of the man, we find that our tears did not 
magnify the greatness which we lost in him. We find 
that our calmest thought was not outrun by the strong- 
est emotion of the heart. Nay, the coolest judgment 
brings back with it something of that first sorrow, for 
it shows us, in clear and unmistakable outline, how 
good and how great he was. 

Abraham Lincoln sprang of Quaker stock. We 
first recognize his ancestors in Pennsylvania. It is 
conjectured that the family came to America in connec- 
tion with the colonies of Penn, though from a similarity 
of family names, some have supposed that it was con- 
nected with the Massachusetts family of Lincolns, a 
connection which would do honor to either branch. 
About the year 1750, which is the first date which 
appears with any distinctness in its history, the family 
removed to Virginia, plunging into the heart of what 
was then a wilderness. About 1780, Abraham Lincoln, 
the grand-father of the President, removed to Ken- 



tucky, following in the track, and sharing the labors 
and perils, of Daniel Boone, the story of whose adven- 
tures made up so much of the romance of our early 
years. In 1784, he w r as slain by an Indian, who ap- 
proached him while he was at his work and unsuspi- 
cious of danger. He left a w T idow, and a family of 
children, among whom was Thomas Lincoln, the father 
of the President, then only six years old. Thomas 
Lincoln grew up amid labor and poverty ; and this is 
all the record that remains of his life. Of the mother 
of the President, also, little is known save the name. 
We can indeed draw out, in our mind, the picture of 
that frontier life, and put into it the sterling sense and 
integrity, which the son doubtless inherited from his 
parents. This son, who was to make their name and 
memory precious to us, was born on the 12th of Feb- 
ruary, 1809. When he had reached the age of seven 
years, the family removed into Indiana, wmich was only 
to take a step deeper into the wilderness, but into an 
atmosphere unpolluted by the presence of slavery. In 
Indiana, Lincoln lived 13 years. They were years full 
of all the labor that makes up the boyhood of a poor 
youth in the far wilderness. It was during these years, 
that he made his first trip down the Mississippi, as one 
of the hands on a flat-boat. In 1830, when Lincoln 
was about attaining his majority, the family removed 
into Illinois. It was soon after this removal, that the 
future President, by hard labor, all unprophetic of its 
future fame, earned for himself the historic title of the 
Rail Splitter. The new rich land must be fenced in, 
and Lincoln with the help of one man, a relative, split 
three thousand rails. After this exploit, he left his 



8 

father's house, and exchanged a laborious youth for a 
laborious manhood. 

As we look back upon the boyhood and the youth 
of Lincoln, we find little place for schools and for the 
study of books. Indeed, his schooling, all told, 
;i mounted to about a year. He was, however, a dili- 
gent reader of whatever book chanced in his way. 
Every child knows the story of Washington and his 
hatchet. The early honesty of the second Washington 
has a like illustration, lie had borrowed of his teacher, 
Mr. Crawford, a copy of Weem's life of Washington. 
By chance, it was left near an open window and 
drenched by a sudden rain. He took the damaged 
book to its owner, explained the accident, lamented 
that he had no money to pay for it, but offered to work 
out its value. " Well, Abe," said Crawford, " as it is 
you, I won't be hard on you ; come over and pull 
fodder with me a couple of days, and we will call it 
square." I need not add that Lincoln faithfully per- 
formed his share in the agreement. 

Such was the boyhood and youth of our President. 
To us, it would have seemed a poor preparation for his 
great work. Perhaps it was the best. He carried 
from it a sturdy constitution, having in it the vitality 
of generations of backwoods life. He carried senses 
trained to truthfulness. He earned habits of untiring 
industry and an unfailing patience. He carried a 
reverence for labor, and a confidence in the working 
people, the people of the country, of whom he was 
one. Moreover, he carried with him all the individual 
lessons that the wilderness had taught him. Much of 
the wit, as well as of the wisdom of his after years, 



was the carrying back of the events of his new life, 
and comparing them with the events of the old. In 
the Psalms of David, it is sweet and touching to see 
how the King carried the shepherd in his heart. ft The 
Lord is my Shepherd," was his tenderest song. So 
Lincoln carried his youth with him. It did not break 
out into song, for that was not the nature of the man. 
It did take shape in manifold words, sportive without, 
but true within. The world need not undertake to 
surprise him with its parades and its sophistries. He 
had seen it all on the farm and in the wilderness. He 
had looked at the heart of nature, and had thus learned 
to read the heart of man. Many of his best sayings 
are touches of the old familiar experience of his 
youth. The politician, restive yet obedient, he had 
known before, in the shape of an uneasy ox on his 
father's farm. "He sought to be in advance," he 
says, of Gen. Cass, " but soon he began to see glimpses 
of the great democratic ox-gad waving in his face, and 
to hear, indistinctly, a voice sajdng : " Back ! back, sir ; 
back a little !" He shakes his head and bats his eyes, 
and blunders back to his position of March, 1847. 
But still the gad waves, and the voice grows more 
distinct and sharper still, " Back sir, back I say, further 
back !" and back he goes to the position of December, 
1847 ; at which the gad is still, and the voice sooth- 
ingly says, " So ! stand still at that." Another instance 
of the same kind is that witty and modest comparison 
about " swapping horses while crossing a stream," which 
expressed in a single sentence a more perfect and sensi- 
ble self-depreciation and self-appreciation, than pages 
of courtly Rhetoric could have done. When the two 



10 

parties of Emancipationists in Missouri were quarrel- 
instead of helping one another, Lincoln's single 
year of Western schools furnished him with a prece- 
i for the discipline they needed, lie said the two 
parties " ought to have their heads knocked together." 

Thus did outward nature and the humblest experi- 
ence of life furnish him with illustration for the grand- 
est questions of policy and State-craft. Who taught 
him thus to interpret nature by life, and life by nature ? 
In his boyhood, there were three books which consti- 
tuted his principal study. Over these he pored, read- 
ing them again and again. One of theso was the life of 
Washington, of which I have already spoken. When 
Lincoln paused at Trenton, on his way to assume the 
duties of the Presidency, he told us the effect that 
this life of Washington produced upon his mind ; how 
the events described there, especially those that occur- 
red near Trenton, fixed themselves indelibly in his 
heart, and how he drew his great lessons of patriotism 
from this history, as he thought that it could liave been 
no common object for which these men so suffered and 
fought. The two other books were Bunyan's " Pil- 
grim's progress," andiEsop's Fables. I have no doubt 
that the quaint poetry and shrewd symbolism of these 
books, controlled the habit of his mind. He studied 
vEsop till he became a second iEsop. A little story, 
a playful illustration, became his natural and favorite 
argument. Indeed, in literary annals there is hardly 
anything more curious than the relation of these three 
books to the history of Lincoln. One furnished the 
model of his life — the others, the habit of his thought. 

Here I will say a word of warning against the misuse 



11 * 

of a life like that of Lincoln's, partially understood. It 
is sometimes said, in relation to such stories of self- 
made men, so common in our annals,— There you see the 
uselessness of books ; experience and hard work, these 
are all that a man needs. Lincoln was a student, a 
hard student, of books. In his boyhood he had little 
opportunity to use them. He made up for it in his 
manhood. When he was studying law, he became 
bewildered with the word " demonstrate." He traced 
it to mathematics. He broke off his law studies, went 
home to his father's house and studied Euclid, to learn 
what it was to demonstrate. Ever after " to demon- 
strate as Euclid demonstrates," was a favorite expres- 
sion with him. a It would be no answer to one of 
Euclid's demonstrations," he said once to Judge Doug- 
las, u to call Euclid a liar." The writings and 
speeches of Lincoln show the marks and the habits of 
hard study. His famous speech in New York was a 
wonderful example of this. No man could have writ- 
ten it without the most careful research ; and no one 
could have written it who was not used to research. 
Books without experience, are lumber. Experience 
without books is one man instead of the universe. 

When Lincoln left his youth, we find that he carried 
with him all its lessons, forgetting nothing, though 
always ready for new truth. The fortune he went to 
seek seemed at first not very promising. We find 
him again on the flat-boat, sailing down the Missis- 
sippi; then as agent and clerk, over-seeing a mill and 
store, and perhaps a distillery; then as a volunteer in 
the "Blackkawk war," chosen captain by his company; 
then, when that expedition broke up, enlisting again, 



12 

and serving as a private, without regard to former 
dignity. Then we find him studying law, and breaking 
off to see what it is "to demonstrate." Before his law 
studies were completed, we find him running for the 
Legislature, and being whipped, in a way that showed 
his marvelous popularity, even at that time, his own 
town giving him, a Whig, all its votes save seven ; 
while to the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, 
it gave shortly after a majority of 155 votes. Then 
we find him eight years in the Legislature ; then, we 
meet him in Congress, refusing to vote that the war 
began by act of Mexico, though voting for the army 
all the supplies that he could, without a falsehood for 
a preamble. And finally, in 1858, we find him the 
acknowledged leader of his party in Illinois, its " first, 
last, and only candidate," for the Senatorship, contest- 
ing that high office before the State, with Judge Doug- 
las, the " Little Giant." As this struggle, in which 
the two combatants held public discussions through 
the State, is a marked epoch in the life of Lincoln, 
since it first showed the nation his strength, we will 
pause and contemplate it for a moment. 

Judge Douglas was at this time at the very height 
of his fame and of his strength. He had by the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which the North 
had slowly learned to prize, startled into sudden rage 
the whole anti-slavery sentiment of the country ; then 
turning against the Democratic party, he had, with 
the same weapon, Popular Sovereignty, smitten it in 
twain, and now stood, as if alone, calling upon the 
American people to rally around the time-honored war 
cry of self-government. Pie was short, florid, full 



13 

favored, with something of a swell about him, fond of 
telling what " I did," and what " I said," making you 
feel that this " I" had been the great mover of all 
great events, with an appearance, and I think the real- 
ity, of consistency, with a great show of fair play for 
everybody, fluent and ready, the most plausible of 
haranguers, the smoothest of politicians, one of the 
keenest of debaters, the only man who had gathered 
a party at his call, the only man who was the leader 
and not the instrument of his party, the only man 
in fact who had a party. Such was the antagonist 
which Lincoln came forth to meet, himself unknown to 
the nation, an unpolished son of the West, a very tall 
David, to meet a rather diminutive Goliah. For Lin- 
coln tall and meagre, with a certain homely simplicity 
of speech and manner, and a quiet modesty, by which 
he forgot himself in the principles for which he fought, 
was in all respects the opposite of his antagonist. He 
had sometimes even a Socratic self-depreciation, with 
which he loved, slyly, to bring out and play upon the 
importance of the Judge — "Senator Douglas," he 
says, " is of world-wide renown. All the anxious pol- 
iticians of his party, or who have been of his party for 
years past, have been looking upon him, as certainly, 
at no distant day, to be the President of the United 
States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful 
face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships and cabinet 
appointments, charge-ships and foreign missions, burst- 
ing and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready 
to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. * * * 
On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be 



14 

President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has 
ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out." 

There you have the parties in this renowned 
contest — a contest which attracted the gaze of the 
country, itself convulsed by political excitement, as, 
in the Homeric battle, the encounter of two mighty 
heroes would draw the gaze of both armies upon itself. 
In Illinois, the excitement must have been tremendous. 
The printed speeches show evidence of this. Crowds 
are referred to, so vast, that no single voice could 
reach their outmost edge ; and once, it appears, at the 
close of the debate, Lincoln was actually carried from 
the ground in triumph, upon the shoulders of his 
friends. The printed speeches are undoubtedly genu- 
ine. Lincoln's, bear unmistakable evidence of his com- 
position. They must have lost more than they have 
gained by the transcript. I have chanced to hear one 
little incident, that is not in the printed form, which 
may illustrate this, — Douglas had referred to the fact, 
that Lincoln in his youth sold liquor for a time. 
Lincoln admitted that for a short time this was one of 
the required duties of his position. u But," he added, 
" the Judge need not say anything, though, for he 
dealt in the same article — only on the other side of the 
counter." I may remark in passing, as an instance of 
the manner in which the moral nature of Lincoln was 
purified, where others would have been corrupted, that 
doubtless this brief experience of his youth in the 
liquor traffic, did much to make of him that total 
abstinence man, which he was known to be through all 
his later life. 

I have described to you the personal excitement of 



15 

this great debate. To Lincoln it was something more 
than a personal struggle. With him it was a battlo 
for principle. His clear gaze looked through and 
be} r ond the excitement of the moment. It was a 
struggle for the right against the wrong, for liberty 
against slavery. Even in ihe question of slavery 
itself he saw only one form of the great struggle for 
popular right. " This," he says, " is the real issue." 
This is the issue that will continue in this country, 
when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself 
shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between 
these two principles — right and wrong — throughout 
the world. They are the two principles that have 
stood face to face, from the beginning of time ; and 
will ever continue to struggle. 'The one is the com- 
mon right of humanity, and the other the divine right 
of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape 
it developes itself. It is the same principle that says, 
" You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." 
No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the 
mouth of a king, who seeks to bestride the people of 
his nation, and live by the fruit of their labor ; or from 
one race of men as an apology for enslaving another 
race ; it is the same tyrannical principle." — Judge 
Douglas brought down the slavery laws of the South 
to the same level with the " Cranberry laws" of Indi- 
ana and the " Oyster laws" of Virginia. He would 
leave the territories to settle these matters of domes- 
tic policy for themselves. — Lincoln answered, first, that 
the " Dred Scott Decision," which Douglas upheld as 
final, took away from the territories the right of set- 
tling this matter : and secondly, that the question of 



16 

slavery brought in a new element, that of right and 
wrong. Judge Douglas, ho said, would be logical in 
his argument, if slavery were not morally wrong. His 
popular sovereignty, he said, is the right of one man 
to enslave another, without the interference of a third. 
The debate involved side issues and personal issues, 
but this was its central point. Through Illinois these 
strong spirits went, the one dragging down the ques- 
tion of liberty to the level of that of " oysters" and 
a cranberries," the other piercing his sophistries with 
the clear light of principle and of right. Even the 
darkness of "Egypt" was for a moment illuminated 
by this unwonted brightness. These words of Lincoln, 
uttered before the famous sentence of Seward in regard 
to the irrepressible conflict between liberty and slavery, 
furnished the centre of the battle ground. " A house 
divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this 
government cannot endure permanently half-slave and 
half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. 
I do not expect the house to fall. I do expect it will 
cease to be divided." — The position of Lincoln, was 
not, indeed, free from contradictions. • He was, at 
once, a conservative and a radical. A conservative is 
a man who recognizes existing institutions. A radical 
is a man who takes his stand upon extreme principle. 
Lincoln took his stand on the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, yet he found a Constitution that recognized 
slavery. lie had prejudices against the negroes. It 
is human to have prejudices ; it is the divine element 
of humanity that conquors them. Later the line that 
separated the races grew faint to his view. He had 
learned the degredation that can bo covered by a 



17 

white skin, and the nobility that can dwell in a dark 
one. In the light of that fuller experience he could 
say, " There will be some black men who can remem- 
ber, that with silent tongue, and clinched teeth, and 
steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have helped 
mankind on to this great consummation ; while I fear 
there will be some white ones, unable to forget, that 
with malignant heart and deceitful speech, they have 
striven to oppose it." 

The result of this discussion, between Lincoln and 
Douglas, was that the State was revolutionized. 
Douglas indeed gained the immediate prize, the United 
States Senatorship, owing to the fact that enough of 
the State Senators of the previous year remained over 
to secure his election. But though Lincoln lost the 
Senatorship, he won the Presidency. This discussion 
introduced him to the country. Henceforth his history 
was to become more and more identified with that of the 
nation, until the two were one. The little forest, stream, 
whose source we could hardly trace, is already swell- 
ing and broadening before our gaze, soon to be lost in 
the ocean. 

The history of these later years is familiar. The 
nomination at Chicago, which caused us here at the 
North such disappointment — a disappointment for 
which, as for so many others, we have learned to thank 
God — the stormy canvass, the triumphant election; 
the journey from Springfield; the speeches on the 
way, the making of which, I doubt not, was one of the 
most difficult things Lincoln was ever called upon to 
do, for he had to speak and yet say nothing ; that 
hasty transit across Baltimore; which the chivalrous 
2 



is 

;h and their friends at the North, not gifted with 
prophesy, thoughi so undignified and bo ungraceful ; the 
Inauguration, after which the nation breathed ni< 
freely; the firsl call for armies, after which it breathed 
more freely still; all the and changes of th 

stormy years are familiar to us, written upon our mem- 

sinlettersof lire ami of blood. And yet, had I 
space, I should l.»vc to follow the personal history of 
our President through them. It would be interesting to 
see the growth of his spirit, to which no lesson of thai 
stern teacher experience, was lost. We should find him 
attaining, at every stop, now comprehension of the 
great crisis. We should find the sense of freedom 
which he felt, when the greal contradiction, of which 
I have spoken, was solved for himself and for the 
nation ; when his conservatism became one with his 
radicalism, the Constitution one with the Declaration 
of Independence. We should find him becoming 
more and more at ease, more confident of himself and 
more confident of the people. We should find his 
nature mellowing; or at least showing itself more 
clearly amid the formalities of his official station. He, 
the tenderest of fathers, began to regard the people 
his children. His public speech began to show more 
and more of that freedom and charm, that marked his 
private intercourse. The deep sentiments of his soul 
began to express themselves with less constraint, until 
his public and official utterances culminated in that 
last " Inaugural." But all the while, we should find 
.•mother element, overshadowing the rest. The powers 
of darkness began their work as he began his. From 
the \^ry first there were the plots of assassination, as 



19 

it would appear concocted in part by the same plotters, 
who at last accomplished their terrible design. Death 
lurked about him in all secret forms. The dagger, the 
pistol, the poisoned cup sought the life of him, the 
unsuspicious and the fearless. But a secret spell 
seemed to guard him. Unharmed he trod the perilous 
path. But at last the spell was broken, for his work 
was done. Amid the shouts of triumph, the ball of 
the assassin, held back no longer, did its fearful work. 
I have said that his life became one with the nation's 
history — his life, but not his death. There, the two 
parted. The mourning people followed his poor 
remains, with tears and praises, to their last resting 
place ; the nation trod, with unfaltering foot, the path 
of peace and of victory. 

In regard to Lincoln, as in regard to Washington, 
and others of kindred nature, the question arises, 
whether or not he should be called great. The line, 
where common sense and integrity pass into greatness 
and genius, is a difficult one to trace. We are used 
to a certain extravagance in those whom we call great. 
We are used to seeing a selfish ambition kindle their 
faculties to intense and glowing heat. A mind that 
takes things as they are, and does the best with them, 
adding to them no selfish or peculiar shape or tinge, 
seems almost too natural to be called great. The mind 
of Lincoln had so beautiful an equipoise, it was so sym- 
metrical, that we have to study it, to feel how great it 
was. When you enter St. Peters at Rome, you are 
not at first struck by its vastness. All parts and all 
adornments are in such symmetrical proportion, that 
you hardly perceive the great difference between this 



20 

and ordinary structures. It is only -when you let 
the eye travel over its immensity, wandering up, — 
up, from the strong foundation, up across the colossal 
figures in mosaic, thai seem only of common stature 
on the vastness of the wall, — up to the spring of the 
mighty dome, up along its majestic sweep, to the very 
summit, that you feel how sublime it is. It is thus 
with the character of Lincoln. We have to study it 
in detail to learn its greatness. More than once I 
have seen him spoken of as "an average American." 
What a country we should have if this were only true ! 
Like Saul he was higher than the people from his 
shoulders upward, and he overtopped them more by his 
character than by his stature. Posterity, looking back 
upon us, will not perpetuate this error. This one fact 
will show his greatness, that in the administration of 
the Government he stood, and was willing to stand, 
alone. For two years, he held no regular and formal 
meeting of his Cabinet. Even when he laid his 
Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet, he 
stated that he wished to take advice in regard to its 
form merely. In regard to its substance, he had 
already made up his mind. At the same time, there 
was nothing of what in the days of Jackson was called 
a " Kitchen cabinet," that is, no circle of managing 
politicians, controlling the Government, though inform- 
ally. Lincoln shrank from no responsibility. When 
his Secretary of Avar was threatened with prosecution 
for illegal arrests, Lincoln promptly took the whole 
responsibility and burden of the matter upon himself 
Thus he stood alone; alone with the people, with no 
third but God. Every official line of his bears the 



21 

stamp of his individuality. The whole movement of 
the nation, cautious, steadfast, and unfaltering, was 
the very embodiment of his character. 

It may he said, indeed, that Lincoln was too observ- 
ant of the popular will, that he followed where he 
should have led. But this in itself, if it were so, 
shows a rare and wonderful power. If in the midst of 
the clamor of parties, of the intrigues of politicians, 
of the pressure of speculators, he could, through all, 
discover what the great heart of the people really and 
honestly wished, it shows a genius for control. His 
theory of government was, that the ruler is the peo- 
ple's servant, bound, in all right things and right ways, 
to do their will and not his own. He had, moreover, 
wisdom enough to see that he was nothing without the 
people. — Take for instance the Proclamation of Eman- 
cipation. He knew that this was not his act, and 
could not be enforced by him alone. Two things were 
needed for its success. — Its endorsement by the people 
at the North, the victory of the armies at the South. 
The Proclamation, without these, would have been like 
a cannon ball thrown by the strength of the artillery- 
man alone. Let him wait till the cannon is loaded, 
till the ball is rammed home. Thus Lincoln waited 
till the great Columbiad was charged. Then he applied 
the match, and the missive sped its way, hurled by the 
might of the nation, falling with this immeasurable 
force, upon the very central citadel of Southern 
strength, and crushing it into annihilation. It was 
because Lincoln had such a genius for his work, and 
went about it so naturally, that it looked so easy, and 
it seemed as if any average American of us could 



99 



have done as well. — The works of Genius always look 
■ till we try to do them. For this genius I think 
he has nol had sufficient credit We read his messa- 
. as the telegraph broughl them to us. and call them 
ungrammatical. We read some "1' his popular speech- 
eSj and pronounce them awkward. Posterity will re- 
verse in pari this decision. Ii is impossible for us, 
even now, to read connectedly his public words, and 
nol feel the genius that is in them, and was in him. 
Eis administration was so broad, the war did not ex- 
haust it. The war was only one of its incidents. 
The Pacific raihoad, the Department of Agriculture, 
all the foreign and domestic interests of the Republic, 
received the same attention as if it had been a time of 
peace. His writings themselves are so full, so clear, 
so rich, so earnest, — so reliant upon the Nation and 
upon Cod, — that now, that the strife is over, wo 
cannot read them without a thrill of enthusiasm. His 
^tyle is sometimes harsh, hut almost always pure. It 
is peculiar. You can tell a line of it any where that 
you meet it, but it is as you can tell a line of Robert 
Browning's. It is the peculiarity of genius. This may 
sound extravagant, but I challenge any one to make a 
study of his writings and not feel that it is true. Lincoln 
was in popular address, as I have said, often awkward. 
The nature of his mind was logical. He had a marvelous 
power of stating a case. This was from no oratorical 
trick, but because he saw its points in their true logical 
relation. From this Logical faculty he could not 
escape. Even his wit was condensed Logic. If he 
talked, he must say something. He must get hold of 
a thread of reasoning or he was at a loss. The argu- 



ment seemed sometimes dragged in. lie used ideas 
for their truth, not for their beauty. The jeweler 
shows you his precious stones all radiant with the 
glitter of cut facets. The mineralogist shows them to 
you, rough from the mountain side, the native rock 
yet clinging to them. Lincoln did not use thoughts 
as the jeweler does stones, for ornament. lie showed 
them rough against the background of fact, from 
which they sprang. He used them for their truth. 
He was no polished speaker then, but he had some- 
thing infinitely better than polish. 

Lincoln was, above all things, an American. He 
was the type of whatever is best and most peculiar to 
us. His very aspect was American. The physiog- 
nomy, which, it is said, this western nature is model- 
ing for us on the type of the Indians, those older 
children of the West, he possessed in a marked degree. 
The caricatures of Brother Jonathan might be taken 
as caricatures of himself. His method was American. 
The American is said to exaggerate. His wit and his 
declamation consists of exaggeration ; but American 
earnest understates. The true Yankee will tell you that 
he rather guesses — that is about all he can clo about a 
matter. You will find that his * Guess" is as strong 
as another man's oath. His * About all" is a line as 
sharp as if drawn by the diamond. Thus Lincoln 
seemed to be guessing his way, but his guesses were 
Yankee guesses. He understated his purposes, but 
none the less they were fixed and unconquerable. 
He was the type of what our civilization was meant 
to produce. He stands as the grand result and exam- 
ple, as well as defender, of American institutions. 



24 

If we would analyze si ill further his character, I 
should Bay that the people hit upon its mosi marked 
feature, when they called him honest, u honesl old Abe. M 
I will not speak of financial honesty. Every act and 
word of his was sincere, lie loved popularity, hut he 
was no demagogue. Ue never Haltered the people, 
lie never even sought merely to amuse them with his 
humor. His popular harangues were as earnest and 
as clear, as a lawyer's argument before the court. I 
told you of the great excitement of his campaign with 
Douglas. What do yoi think of the fact, that, with 
that eager crowd before him, he ■would sometimes sit 
down leaving ten minutes of his time unoccupied. 
This was not because he had nothing more to say, but 
because if he took up another point, he could not get 
through with it. He could not talk to the people 
without taking up points, and when he had done with 
one, he had to sit down or take up another. "When 
you see in his words something -which, coming from 
another man, you would take to be good rhetoric, you 
may be sure that from his lips, it had special meaning. 
At Philadelphia, he said he would rather be assassi- 
nated, than give up the principles of the Declaration 
of Independence. Good Rhetoric, was it ? The words 
were spoken just as he learned of the plot to assassi- 
nate him, in his passage through Baltimore. Of Get- 
tysburg, he said, — "We cannot consecrate it, but we 
c;m consecrate ourselves." Very well put. you say. 
But, afterwards, we learn, that it was on that Aery 
spot that he had consecrated himself, with a fresh 

devotion to th' 1 service of God as well as that of* man. 
Jle loved the people with an honest love. He gave 



25 

open audience to all, that he might not forget that he 
was one of the people, that like Antaeus, he might be 
strengthened by the touch of the earth, from which he 
sprung. 

If I should add one more word to this scanty por- 
trayal of his character, I should say that he was chiv- 
alrous. I use the word, because it has been so much 
misused. Seek what is best in chivalry, sum up its 
noblest lessons, and you have in theory what Abraham 
Lincoln was. Chivalry enjoined courage. Was he not 
brave ? He lived so long in an atmosphere charged 
with death, that the peril became a jest. He walked 
alone save for the presence of his little boy, whom he 
led by the hand without guard or guide through the very 
heart of captured Richmond. At Washington he made 
sport of the military escort that was sometimes forced 
upon him. If to know no fear be bravery, he was 
brave. Chivalry bade its followers be chaste. Lincoln 
was without a vice, — without reproach as well as 
without fear. Chivalry taught respect to the hum- 
ble and care for the oppressed. Lincoln never saw 
a person too humble to be treated with his best cour- 
tesy. Once when a little ragged boy pressed in with 
two honorable Senators, to speak with him, he took 
the poor boy's hand, and heard his story before he had 
greeted his distinguished guests. You remember the 
story of the mother with her infant waiting in the 
ante-room, and how " it was the baby that did it," He 
succored the oppressed ; he struck off the fetters from 
a race of bondmen. He was merciful and courteous 
to prisoners. He rode ten miles, you remember, in 
the hot sun, to make sure that a reprieve he had issued 
3 



did no! fail of i tination. You remember how 

- mercy of his blossomed in while flowers upon his 
bier. Even the rebel prisoners felt themselves safe in 
his firm yet gentle hand. Ik- was the very Prince of 
Chivalry. His nation stood exposed to a mom 
more terrible than any the old legends dreamed of. 
She summoned him to fight her battle. Though he 
l'cll in the conflict, the monster had received its death 
wound, and the nation, saved and honored, will bring 
to him praise and thanks forever. 

Would you heighten the beauty of tin- picture by 
a dark and terrible contrast. Sum up the besl teach- 
ings of chivalry, and you speak u hat Abraham Lincoln 
was. ami in the same breath, what the so-called chivalry 
of the South was not. — Chastity? You mock Truth'.' 
You forget their broken oaths. — Mercy for the 
oppressed ? What irony. — Fair and honorable war- 
fare ? Their weapons were poison and pestilence and 
the dagger's stroke. — Courtesy to prisoners! — Their 
courtesy was torture and starvation. I tell you, that 
in the pure gaze of infinite justici . the death of the 
President himself, terrible as it was. is not to he com- 
pared lor infamy of crime, with the long-drawn anguish 
of one of those tortun d soldiers, in the Southern 
prisons. Prisons, do I say, when they had not even 
the shelter of a prison, when they lay exposed to all 
the chances of sun and of tempest ; exposed to the 
taunts of the Southern — ladies. — I will not call them 
women, who rode out to make a mock of their suffer- 
ings : while Southern women were lashed on the hare 
back for ministering to their necessities. Southern 
soldiers were brave ; to deny it would be to take from 



21 

the laurels of our own brave boys. They had good 
Generals ; to deny it would be to strip the laurels from 
our own ; but the Chivalry of the " Confederacy " as 
such, was made up of a brag and a whine. Davis 
stands as the representative of Southern, as Lincoln 
docs of the true Chivalry. You read the messages of 
Davis, and you wonder where are our victories and their 
defeats. You wonder if we were such barbarians 
indeed. But when you see him in his last disguise, 
nourishing his elegant dagger, and complaining that 
he thought we were "too magnaimous to pursue 
women," you have a revelation of the whole. It was a 
long disguise. It pretended to liberty. It placed the 
sacred cap of Freedom on its brow, and while it held 
down, with one iron hand, the white, and with the other 
crushed the black, it boasted the terrors it was to 
bring to pass, and whined that we did not let it alone 
with its freedom. But, from beneath each disguise, 
the cloven foot was seen, and through all pierced the 
stern stroke of Justice. 

Thus have we, together, traced in poor and imperfect 
outline, the history and the character of Abraham 
Lincoln. — He reached the place toward which, while 
America is worthy of her name, her sons will aspire 
with honorable ambition. Will any envy him this 
great advancement ? " His face was the saddest I 
have ever seen," said one long used to study faces. 
Men heard his playful jest and merry laughter, and 
thought he had no sense of the stern realities about 
him. They did not know that these sparkling jests 
were the springs to which he stooped for refreshment, 
as he trod the path of the nation's sorrow. Where 



28 

others would have paused, their physical capacity for 
endurance ■_ •■■-. b • stooped, and drank of these bub- 
bling rills, and went forward, thus strengthened, to 
tread with full consciousness the whole length of the 
allotted way. And surely there "will be none to e] 
him thai last silent majesty of hit death. Will any then 
pity him? He had a joy thai would scorn pity. For 
him was uttered the greai promise, u Thou hast been 
faithful over a few things, 1 will make thee ruler over 
many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord," — 
tlic joy of the Lord, that joy full upon whose path 
rises the cross, yet none the Less a joy. Will any look 
down upon him for his lack of culture, his lack of 
enthusiasm for ideas, and of faith in them? He had 
learned the great lesson of his age. He had an 
enthusiasm for ideas that scorned the tricks of Rhetoric. 
He had a faith in them, by which he knew that their 
bare presentation to the people, in their simplest and 
clearest shape, would kindle and quicken, would 
strengthen and guide them. lie had a faith in princi- 
ple, which, secure of the result, could leave unused the 
hurrying goad of a doubtful policy. Will any rever- 
ence him with distant and humble awe ? His hearty 
laugh, his sportive speech, the grasp of his honest 
hand, the ready kindness of his heart, would draw 
them to his side. We can love him and that is the 
tribute he would love the best. 

As we look hack upon his history, we see that all 
is right. It was well that his ancestors and himself 
Bhould have conquered the land he was to rule, con- 
quered it in»t by the weapons of war. hut by the nobler 
weapons of peace, by the plough and the axe, the 



20 

wedge and the maul. It is well that he brought from 
the wilderness, into politics, a heart that could not be 
made corrupt, and into war, a heart that could not he 
made hard. It is well that he opened his mouth in 
proverbs, and spoke that universal language, most 
common to the wisest and to the simplest. It is well 
that he was the child of his country, the child of his 
century ; that he had faith in the people, faith in him- 
self, faith in principle, and faith in God. It is well 
that his administration culminated in one act of Eman- 
cipation, which shall make his memory immortal ; and 
well for him that he departed in the full flush and 
glory of victory, leaving his fame to ripen in a day. 

Well for him, and for us what remains. For us 
remains the victory he won ; but for us remains also 
the struggle to be completed. The time, which his 
prophetic heart foresaw, has come. The tongues of 
Douglas and himself are silent. The first lived long 
enough to bring his talent and his influence, as a free 
offering to his country, even though it was also an 
offering to his successful rival. Both lived long 
enough to fight side by side, for a common cause. 
Both are now silent ; but the great principles still 
wage their eternal strife. 

We have to learn what justice is. In the hour of 
passion we call vengeance justice. When the passion 
has passed we call justice vengeance. We must learn 
what the national good faith and honor are ; even 
though under its plighted troth, the guiltiest of the 
rebel Generals may escape all punishment but eternal 
infamy. We must learn what liberty is, liberty for 
those whom our martyred President made free. We 



30 

must learn thai those who fought for us should tri- 
umph with us ; that also in their dusky hands •• ballots 
should be the rightful and peaceful successors of bul- 
lets." We must learn thus to trust principle, to follow 
the right, to serve with steadfast purpose God and our 
Country. " And," as Abraham Lincoln said four years 
ago, " having thus chosen our course, without guile 
and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, 
and go forward without Tear and with manly hearts." 






